Oak  Street 
UNCLASSIFIED 


Volume  IV 


APRIL- JUNE,  1918 


Number  3 


Published  by  Randolph-Macon  Woman's  College 
Issued  Quarterly 


BULLETIN  OF 

RANDOLPH-MACON 
WOMAN'S  COLLEGE 

LYNCHBURG,  VA. 


IRY 


AN  IMPERIAL  PASSION 
By  LYNN  HAROLD  HOUGH 

LITERATURE  AND  WORLD  DEMOCRACY 
By  JOHN  CALVIN  METCALF 


Entered  as  second-class  matter,  January  5,  1915,   at  the  post-office  at    Lynchburg,  Virginia, 
under  the  Act  of  August  24,   1912. 


BULLETIN 


OF 


RANDOLPH-MACON 
WOMAN'S  COLLEGE 


nmis  umn 


KCV25  1918 

AN  IMPERIAL  PASSION 

BY  LYNN  HAROLD  HOUGH 

GARRETT    BIBLICAL    INSTITUTE 


LITERATURE  AND  WORLD  DEMOCRACY 

BY  JOHN  CALVIN   METCALF 

UNIVERSITY    OF    VIRGINIA 


Published  by  Randolph-Macon  Woman's  College 
lynchburg,  va. 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2013 


http://archive.org/details/imperialpassionOOhoug 


is-wT 


^4n  Imperial  Passion* 

By  Lynn  Harold  Hough 


"Blessed   are   they   that   hunger   and   thirst   after  righteousness  for  they 

shall  be  filled." 

Sometimes  the  world  seems  to  let  us  alone.  We  can  live  all 
our  lives  and  not  very  many  questions  are  asked.  Sometimes  the 
world  makes  tremendous  demands  upon  us.  They  grow  and 
grow  until  we  fairly  stagger  under  the  weight  of  it  all.  We 
wonder  where  we  can  find  vitality  and  power  to  carry  us 
through  all  that  we  must  do. 

Looking  back  to  the  world  before  nineteen-fourteen,  it  now 
seems  strangely  carefree,  light-hearted  and  safe  from  the  pres- 
sure of  terrific  responsibility.  We  did  not  know  that  the 
lightning  was  preparing  to  strike.  We  did  not  know  that  the 
foundations  of  the  world  were  crumbling  and  that  soon  there 
was  to  be  ruin  all  about  us.  Then  came  the  shock,  the  sudden 
disillusionment,  and  all  the  tragic  realization  of  the  world  war. 
Now  we  have  settled  to  bear  the  new  weight  of  responsibility. 
Now  we  have  begun  to  take  our  place  in  the  new  and  strange 
world  in  which  we  live.  We  are  carefree  no  more.  The  weight 
of  the  age  has  settled  upon  us,  and  there  are  moments  of  sudden 
realization  when  we  wonder  if  it  will  crush  us  to  the  earth. 

We  have  begun  to  ask  a  hard  and  candid  and  remorseless  ques- 
tion of  ourselves.    We  have  begun  to  ask  it  about  others.     Are 
^-we  strong  enough  to  meet  the  demand  these  days  make?     Are 
^S  we  going  to  be  able  to  go  through  meeting  all  the  recurring 
|  shocks  and  all  the  unspeakable  demand  for  grim  and  unhesitat- 
^   ing  and  loyal  action  until  the  victory  is  won. 

We  love  America  and  our  hearts  thrill  at  the  thought  of  our 
^J  land  rising  to  meet  the  world-wide  crisis. 
R 


'St, 


*Baccalaureate    Sermon,    delivered   in   the   Chapel   of    Eandolph-Macon 
Woman's  College,  June  2,  1918. 


4  Bulletin 

America,  my  heart's  land, 

My  singing  is  for  thee, 
America  the  homeland 

Of  rapturous  liberty. 

America,  the  glad  land, 

Scattering  joy  and  song; 
America,  the  strong  land, 

Fierce  battler  against  many. 

America,  the  friendly  land, 

Face  smiling  and  eyes  bright, 
America,  the  stern  land, 

In    war's    imperial    might. 

America,  the  man's  land, 

Strong  limbed  and  full  of  power; 

America,  the  woman's  land, 
Fair  blooming  like  a  flower. 

America,  the  children's  land, 

Of  mirth  and  merry  plays; 
America,  the  old  folk's  land, 

Of  golden  sunset  days. 

America,  my  heart's  land, 

My  singing  is  for  thee; 
America,  the  home-land, 

Of  rapturous  liberty. 

We  love  our  land  and  we  lift  the  testing,  pressing  question, 
Will  America  be  vital  enough,  and  enduring  enough  for  the 
great  crisis? 

This  question  comes  with  definite  emphasis  as  one  addresses 
a  large  group  of  young  women  who  are  just  about  to  finish  their 
college  course.  The  womanhood  of  America  must  be  strong  to 
put  inspiration  and  faithfulness  and  unhesitating  loyalty  into 
American  life.  Will  the  demand  be  met?  We  have  read  with 
astonishment  of  the  fashion  in  which  the  womanhood  of  other 
lands  has  risen  to  the  occasion.  That  Canadian  woman  who  with 
her  heart  full  of  mourning  for  sons  already  slain,  wrote  to  the 
lad  wounded  in  America,  "Oh,  my  son,  get  well  quickly  and  go 
back  and  strike  another  blow  for  liberty,"  represents  a  vision, 
a  moral  and  spiritual  strength,  which  comes  to  us  as  a  challenge. 
Ami  ire  are  already  seeing  the  Light  of  the  same  devotion  in 
American  somen's  eyes,  still  the  question  emerges.  How  shall 
pre  become  strong  enough  to  ¥<>  through  these  long  and  terrible 


Randolph-Macon  Woman's  College  5 

days  to  the  very  end  ?  How  shall  American  womanhood  be  made 
stronger  than  the  worst  which  an  evil  fate  can  do? 

As  soon  as  we  look  into  the  matter  with  earnest  care,  we 
discover  that  our  great  need  is  the  need  of  a  passion,  the  need 
of  an  imperial  passion  which  shall  carry  us  through  tragedy  and 
pain  and  waiting  to  the  day  of  victory,  and  in  that  later  day 
carry  us  through  the  demanding  work  of  rebuilding  the  world. 

Naturally  we  look  to  the  great  Master  of  life  for  the  decisive 
word  in  respect  of  this  matter.  Naturally  we  go  to  the  one  whose 
victorious  life  and  luminous  words  have  been  a  transforming 
power  in  twenty  centuries  for  guidance  here.  And  His  word  is 
characteristic  in  its  brief  and  telling  and  epigrammatic  power: 
"Blessed  are  they  that  hunger  and  thirst  after  righteousness  for 
they  shall  be  filled."  The  source  of  power  in  human  life,  is  its 
deepest  desire.  Not  what  we  have  but  what  we  want  defines  us. 
And  the  men  and  women  who  want  righteousness  more  than 
anything  else,  who  have  given  themselves  to  a  deep  hunger  for 
personal  righteousness,  and  national  righteousness,  and  right- 
eousness for  the  world,  will  have  an  imperial  passion  which 
sweeps  everything  else  aside  as  incidental,  and  fills  them  with 
strength  as  the  living  Christ  touches  their  lives.  The  men  and 
women  wThose  passionate  desire  for  righteousness  has  drawn  them 
to  the  living  Christ  will  not  fail  in  this  critical  hour. 

This  imperial  passion  will  deepen  and  enrich  all  our  relation- 
ships. It  will  put  new,  bright  and  vivid  energy  into  social  life 
until  all  our  relations  have  a  certain  beautiful  and  noble  and 
kindling  quality.  It  is  always  a  fine  thing  to  know  well  one 
whose  great  desire  is  for  great  things  and  who  is  not  perpetually 
wasting  devotion  upon  the  incidental.  There  is  an  inner  glow 
which  seems  breaking  through  every  way  of  escape  in  some  per- 
sonalities, it  is  the  glow  of  a  noble  and  royal  passion,  which 
loves  the  right  and  seeks  it  and  surrenders  to  it.  A  great  day 
has  come  to  us  when  we  have  found  something  bigger  than  our- 
selves. We  will  no  longer  be  center  of  the  picture.  But  it  will 
be  a  greater  picture,  all  full  of  the  sunlight  of  noble  living. 

The  imperial  passion  will  give  us  courage  for  the  hard  and 
long  and  grinding  tasks  of  everyday.     There  is  no  such  thing 


6  Bulletin 

as  dull  routine  if  we  bring  a  fresh  and  creative  spirit  to  our 
task.    The  spirit  transfigures  the  work. 

The  woman  with  the  imperial  passion  for  righteousness  in 
every  relationship  has  no  time  for  heavy  and  bitter  brooding. 
She  brings  such  vigor  and  enthusiasm  and  vital  energy  to  every 
task,  that  her  own  presence  fills  it  with  a  quality  impossible 
before.  "I  am  going  back  to  a  very  dull  town,''  said  a  young 
graduate  to  a  college  president.  "It  need  not  be  after  you 
arrive, ' '  was  the  quick  reply.  ♦ 

The  imperial  passion  will  make  us  ready  for  all  the  tasks  of 
this  war.  In  a  sense,  women  must  win  it.  They  have  such 
tremendous  possibilities  in  creating  morale.  "And  it  is  morale 
which  wins  victories,"  Napoleon  used  to  say.  There  are  three 
war  tasks  as  we  approach  our  share  in  the  conflict.  The  first  is 
the  mobilization  of  men.  And  right  wonderfully  that  is  going 
on.  The  second  is  the  mobilization  of  material  resources.  That 
too  is  being  carried  on  in  extraordinary  fashion.  We  have  now 
enough  storehouses  in  France  to  reach  the  distance  from  New 
York  to  Philadelphia.  There  is  a  third  task.  That  is  the  mobil- 
izing of  the  invisible  moral  and  spiritual  resources  of  the 
nation.  It  is  one  of  the  greatest  of  the  tasks  which  confront 
us.  To  keep  the  vision  of  the  meaning  of  this  war  for  inter- 
national decency,  and  international  order,  clear  in  men's  minds, 
and  to  cause  it  to  burn  like  fire  in  their  hearts,  is  one  of  the 
supreme  necessities  of  the  hour.  Here  women  have  a  tremendous 
opportunity.  Every  letter  written  to  a  cantonment  or  to 
France  helps  to  make  a  stronger  or  a  weaker  soldier.  The 
mothers  and  the  wives  and  the  sweethearts  can  make  our  soldiers 
invincible.  And  the  imperial  passion  for  a  world-wide  victory 
of  righteousness  can  put  the  secret  of  this  inspiration  in  their 
own  hearts. 

The  imperial  passion  can  put  into  our  hearts  even  during  the 
war  that  attitude  and  thai  outlook  which  are  necessary  for  the 
rebuilding   of   the   world.     The   self-giving   of   chaplains   and 

nnneS  and   Association   workers   must,  become  a   permanent  part 

in  the  life  of  the  world  That  vision  of  ultimate  brol  berhood  which 
enabled  Albert  of  Belgium  to  pray  "forgive"  when  the  word 


Randolph-Macon  Woman's  College  7 

was  choking  in  the  throats  of  a  little  group  of  people  about  him, 
must  be  kept  before  our  eyes.  This  war  must  be  won  whatever 
the  cost.  And  we  must  make  the  recurrence  of  such  an  attack 
on  civilization  by  the  central  powers  impossible.  But  the 
victory  must  mean  at  last  the  triumph  of  fairness  and  generosity 
and  not  a  triumph  of  hate.  Military  defeat  complete  and  un- 
mistakable is  the  beginning  of  our  opportunity  to  bring  the  de- 
feated into  the  better  life  of  the  new  day.  A  war  is  never  really 
won  as  a  discerning  poet  has  said,  "until  you  make  your  foe 
your  friend. ' '  The  imperial  passion  for  righteousness  will  bring 
this  about.  For  righteousness  is  never  finally  triumphant  until 
hate  has  been  cast  out  of  the  heart. 

The  share  of  women  inspired  by  the  high,  stern,  loving 
spirit  of  Christ  in  the  gaining  of  the  victory  and  the  rebuilding 
of  the  world  will  be  vast  and  far  reaching.  Their  imperial 
passion  will  make  them  strong  and  put  light  in  the  eyes  of  the 
men  who  must  fight. 

I  listened  to  the  crash  of  wild  explosion, 

As  fierce  winged  shells  moved  madly  through  the  air. 

I  saw  the  chaos  and  the  red  confusion, 

Of  battlefields  with  terror  everywhere. 

Then  with  a  sudden  gleam  of  strange  surprise, 

I  saw  the  bright  light  in  the  soldiers'  eyes. 

As  men  dashed  on  with  bayonets  set  for  charging, 
Their   bodies   tense — their   arms   steel   gripping  steel, 
A  thousand  memories  their  hearts  enlarging, 
Through  war's  hot  passion  love's  far-flung  appeal 
Like  golden  shining  of  the  sunset  skies, 
I  saw  the  bright  light  in  the  soldiers'  eyes. 

The  arms  of  far-off  children  clasping  tightly, 
The  necks  of  men  held  in  war's  hard  embrace, 
Invisible  loved  faces   smiling  brightly, 
With   old-time  witchery   and  tender   grace. 
Though   around   death's   ghastly  shadows  lie, 
These   bring  the  bright  light  to  the   soldiers'   eye. 

A  dream  of  men  in  new  strong  bonds  united, 
Beyond  the  burning  fever  of  the  strife, 
A  dream  of  peace  beyond  a  world  benighted, 
Where  war  has  bivouacked  at  the  death  of  life. 
A  dream  of  that  new  day  which  shall  arise, 
This  brings  the  bright  light  to  the  soldiers'  eyes. 


8  Bulletin 

I  saw  the  day  break  with  the  sun's  bright  gleaming, 

The  Easter  daybreak  with  a  world  at  peace. 

After  Golgotha  with  its  death's  redeeming, 

After  the  suffering  which  wrought  release. 

I  knew  then  the  meaning  of  the  tortured  cries. 

I  saw  the  bright  light  in  the  soldiers'  eyes. 

The  imperial  passion — the  hunger  for  righteousness  in  all 
life's  relations — kindled  and  made  to  glow  by  the  mighty 
power  of  the  great  Master,  will  carry  us  through  the  darkness 
into  the  light  which  is  to  be. 


Literature  and  World  Democracy* 

By  John   Calvin  Metcalf 

The  most  significant  fact  for  us  Americans  in  this  world 
war  is  the  birth  of  internationalism.  War,  with  all  its  horrors, 
has  nevertheless  one  redeeming  virtue:  it  breaks  up  the 
old  adhesions  and  causes  the  atoms  of  society  to  assemble 
themselves  into  new  forms.  War  is  both  a  solvent  and  a  puri- 
fier; in  a  time  of  war  we  all  go  on  voyages  of  discovery  either 
actually  or  vicariously.  In  the  first  place,  we  have  learned  a 
great  deal  of  geography.  We  diligently  study  the  maps,  we  get 
letters  from  over  there,  we  send  messages  and  money  and  gifts, 
our  kinsmen  and  kinswomen  are  there,  and  in  spirit  we  are  there 
ourselves.  In  the  next  place,  we  have  managed  to  assimilate  an 
astonishing  amount  of  foreign  political  and  social  history.  We 
have  discovered  the  line  of  cleavage  between  democratic  govern- 
ments and  autocracies,  and  we  have  a  new-born  passion  in  our 
hearts  for  the  liberation  of  the  world.  We  have  been  trying  for  a 
hundred  years  the  national  melting-pot ;  now  we  are  experiment- 
ing with  militant  and  international  fusing-irons.  Our  democracy 
is  no  longer  static  and  pacific ;  it  has  become  dynamic  and  com- 
pelling. We  have  exchanged  the  provincial  mind  for  the  inter- 
national   mind. 

A  year  or  two  ago  we  heard  much  of  defending  our  rights. 
It  was  assumed  by  many  patriotic  Americans  that  our  main  busi- 
ness was  to  keep  the  Teutons  from  attacking  our  coasts.  A 
well  known  American  statesman  is  reported  to  have  said  that 
if  the  Teutons  dared  to  do  it,  a  million  embattled  farmers 
would  seize  their  old  squirrel  rifles,  jump  in  their  Ford  cars 
and  drive  the  invaders  in  confusion  back  into  the  sea.  How 
antique  and  childlike  that  sounds  to-day!  This  is  not  prima- 
rily   a    war   of   defense,    but    a  crusade  of  release.     When  we 


*  Commencement  Address  delivered  in  the  Chapel  of  Randolph-Macon 
Woman's  College,  June  4,  1918. 


10  Bulletin 

freed  Cuba  in  1898  we  committed  ourselves  to  a  larger  pro- 
gram. Up  to  that  time  all  our  wars  had  been  in  defense  of 
national  or  sectional  rights,  of  local  and  internal  liberty.  But 
the  Battle  of  Manila  Bay  and  Santiago  opened  a  new  outlet  for 
our  pent-up  provincialism.  We  had  fought  in  order  that  a 
neighboring  island  might  have  a  chance  at  national  selfhood 
and  a  group  of  far-away  islands  a  benevolent  supervision  while 
their  people  were  learning  the  lessons  of  democracy. 

Ever  since  that  momentous  day  in  our  history,  we  have  felt 
more  and  more  strongly  the  impulse  and  the  new  spirit  of  the 
larger  patriotism.  We  began  to  look  outward  and  to  feel  it  our 
duty  to  lend  a  helping  hand.  The  conviction  that  somehow  des- 
tiny was  forcing  us  to  take  stock  in  international  affairs  began  to 
grow."  This  conviction  was  of  course  ^pacific,  not  militant; 
we  dreamed  that  reason  and  humanity  would  settle  interna- 
tional troubles,  and  that  the  war  drum  would  throb  no  longer. 
Now  we  find  ourselves  in  what  looks  like  a  topsy-turvy  uni- 
verse. We  thought  we  had  settled  most  vital  questions,  and 
we  thought  we  understood  the  fundamentals.  Now  we  wake 
up,  rub  our  eyes  and  ask  ourselves  what  has  become  of  the 
fundamentals. 

The  most  satisfactory  answers  to  that  question  we  are  get- 
ting from  a  handful  of  allied  statesmen,  chief  among  them  our 
own  great  President.  More  clearly  than  anyone  else  he  has 
formulated  our  aims:  "We  shall  fight  for  the  things  which 
we  have  always  carried  nearest  our  hearts — for  democracy, 
for  the  right  of  those  who  submit  to  authority  to  have  a  voice 
in  their  own  governments,  for  the  rights  and  liberties  of 
small  nations,  for  a  universal  dominion  of  right  by  such  a 
concert  of  free  peoples  as  shall  bring  peace  and  safety  to 
all  nations  and  make  the  world  itself  at  last  free."  *  *  * 
"We  shall  make  good  with  our  lives  and  fortunes  the  great 
faith  to  which  we  were  born  and  a  new  glory  shall  .shine  in 
the   face  of  our   people." 

This  ideal  of  safe  and  sane  internationalism,  based  on  the 
fundamental  trinity  of  fraternity,  equality,  and  liberty,  is 
deeply    reflected     in  the    literature     ;m<I    particularly  in  the 


Randolph-Macon  Woman's  College  11 

poetry  of  the  last  three  years.  The  spiritual  history  of  a 
nation  may  be  read  in  its  patriotic  poetry.  In  times  of  su- 
preme crisis  the  human  spirit  finds  release  through  song, 
achieves  a  new  freedom.  Shelley  once  said  that  poets  are 
the  unacknowledged  legislators  of  the  world,  and  that  the 
highest  form  of  legislation  is  the  exalted  service  of  poetry 
in  guiding  and  ultimately  determining  the  final  verdicts 
of  the  soul  of  man.  Whether  legislators  or  not,  the  poets 
are  prophets.  They  are  the  first  to  sense  the  roaring  of  a 
wind  in  the  world  which  blows  away  old  clouds  and  cobwebs 
of    outworn    creeds. 

Back  in  1898,  when  our  active  period  of  world  democracy 
was  faintly  beginning,  a  young  American  poet,  Richard 
Hovey,  sensed  the  spirit  of  the  new  era  which  had  dawned. 
His  stirring  lines,  "The  Call  of  the  Bugles,"  rebuked  those 
who  were  crying  peace  when  peace  would  mean  a  compro- 
mise with  wrong.  That  poem  might  have  been  written  yester- 
day, so  clearly  does  it  sound  the  note  of  militant  patriot- 
ism  which   rings   through   our  land   today: 

Not  against  war, 
But  against  wrong, 
League  Ave  in  mighty  bonds 

from  sea  to  sea! 
Peace,  when  the  world  is  free! 
Peace,  when  there  is  no  thong, 
Fetter  nor  bar! 
No  scourges  for  men's  backs, 
No  thumbscrews  and  no  racks — . 
For  body  or  soul! 
No  unjust  law! 
No  tyrannous  control 
Of  brawn  or  maw! 
But  though  the  day  be  far, 
Till  then,  war ! 

A  new  literature  is  being  born  out  of  this  struggle  for 
world  democracy  to  usher  in  the  young  world  after  this  in- 
ferno of  blood.  For  the  past  three  years  hardly  a  novel 
has  been  written  that  is  not  tinged  with  blood  and  shot 
through  with  twilight  streaks  of  shattered  faith  and  broken 
idols.  Into  poetry  has  come  back  a  vigor,  a  thrilling  viril- 
ity, which  you  will  look  for  in  vain  in  the  tired  verse  before 


12  Bulletin 

the  war.  It  is  as  if  the  spirit  of  the  Elizabethans,  those 
vital  ancestors  of  ours,  had  found  its  reincarnation  through 
war  in  the  singer  of  today.  Out  of  the  French  Revolution, 
which  began  in  a  fierce  outburst  against  tyranny  and  a  wild 
reign  of  terror  for  a  freer  world,  came  the  impulse  that 
evoked  the  passionate  liberty  poems  of  Byron  and  Shelley. 
Of   those    days   Wordsworth    exclaimed: 

Bliss  it  was  in  that  dawn  to  be  alive, 
But  to  be  young  was  very  heaven. 

The  splendors  of  a  new  dawn  for  Democracy  make  radi- 
ant the  newest  poetry. 

The  first  thing  that  impresses  one  in  this  poetry  is  the 
pervading  sense  of  adventure  and  of  an  open  future.  It 
is  the  romance  of  perilous  daring.  This  war  has  meant  for 
the  peoples  of  Europe  and  will  ultimately  mean  for  us  the 
passage  from  an  easy  contentment  and  security  into  a  life, 
the  stuff  of  which  is  woven  of  agonies  and  dangers  and  re- 
nunciations; the  sweeping  away  of  everything  that  is  safe, 
everything  that  is  comfortable.  This  sense  of  a  great  ad- 
venture is  voiced  most  clearly  by  poets  militant  who 
have  thrown  themselves  into  the  conflict.  It  is  the  unique 
distinction  of  this  war  that  in  its  fiery  furnace  have  been 
shaped  a  few  great  lyrics  by  men  who  perished  in  the  fray. 
Over  thirty  well  known  English  and  American  poete  and 
many  of  less  renown  have  been  at  the  front.  The  spirit  of 
glorious  daring,  the  sense  of  relief  from  the  normal  con- 
ventions of  life,  and  the  chance  to  heal  oneself  by  overcom- 
ing physical  fear,  gave  to  these  singers  a  new  utterance  that 
.shows  how  magnificently  their  minds  reacted  to  the  cruelty 
and  the  pity  of  it  all  and  how  the  passion  and  the  energy 
of  war  purged  and  exalted  their  souls.  Of  each  one  it  might 
be  k;iifl  thai  WBT  put  a  Dew  song  into  his  mouth  and  that  noth- 
ing in  his  life  became  him  like  the  leaving  it. 

I  am  thinking  of  men  like  Rupert  Brooke  and  Alan  Seoger 
and  Robert  Vernede  and  Francia  Ledwidge  ami  Edward 
Thomai  and  John  McCrea,  to  mention  only  a  few  of  those 
uh(,  v  ml   with  songs    to  the    battle.       All  thfl  world  knows 


Randolph-Macon  Woman's  College  13 

Rupert  Brooke's  great  sonnet,  "The  Soldier,"  so  far  the 
finest  lyric  utterance  of  the  war;  and  everybody  is  now  famil- 
iar with  our  own  Alan  Seeger's  lines,  consecrated  by  his  own 
heroic  death : 

I  have  a  rendez-vous  with  death 

At   some   disputed   barricade, 

When  spring  comes  back  with  rustling  shade 

And   apple-blossoms  fill   the   air. — 

All  of  us  have  read  Herbert  Asquith's  sonnet  on  the  obscure 
clerk 

— who  half  his  life  had  spent 
Toiling  at  ledgers  in  a  city  grey, 
Thinking  that  so  his  days  would  drift  away, 
With   no   lance   broken  in  life's  tournament; 

but  who  found  release  from  his  dull,  drab-colored  existence 
in  the  clash  of  arms  and  went  at  last  to  join  the  men  of  Agin- 
court. 

In  current  war  poetry  we  discover  a  new  and  livelier  sense  of 
brotherhood  among  the  allied  nations,  twenty-one  of  whom  are 
leagued  together  in  a  righteous  cause  to  which  they  have  pledged 
their  lives,  their  fortunes  and  their  sacred  honor.  It  is  a  broth- 
erhood cemented  by  sacrifice.  It  is  an  alliance  of  big  brothers 
for  the  protection  of  their  little  brothers.  For  us  the  bond  of 
union  is  naturally  closest  with  our  British  kin;  but  hardly  less 
close  with  that  second  home  of  all  lovers  of  beauty  and  nobility 
of  spirit,  France.  More  than  sixty  years  ago  Tennyson  antici- 
pated the  present  situation  when,  in  his  "Hands  All  Round," 
he  called  out  to  America: 

Should  war's  mad  blast  again  be  blown, 
Permit  not  thou  the  tyrant 's  powers 
To   fight    thy    mother   here    alone, 
But  let  thy  broadside  roar  with  ours.     .     .     . 
O   rise,  our  strong  Atlantic  sons, 
When  war   against   our   freedom   springs 
O   speak  to  Europe  through  your  guns! 
They  can  be  understood  by  kings. 

Well,  our  broadside  is  roaring  with  England's  at  this  very  hour, 
and  our  guns  will  be  understood  in  the  palace  of  Potsdam. 


14  Bulletin 

Shortly  after  the  declaration  of  war  last  year,  Ambassador 
Page  asserted  that  "we  shall  get  out  of  this  association  an  in- 
dissoluble companionship,  and  we  shall  henceforth  have  indis- 
soluble mutual  duties  for  mankind."  This  is  the  burden  of 
many  lyrics.  One  of  the  finest  of  these  fraternal  poems  is 
Florence  Holt's  sonnet  "England  and  America:" 

Mother  and  child!     Though  the  dividing  sea 
Shall  roll  its  tide  between  us,  we  are  one, 
Knit  by  immortal  memories,  and  none 
But  feels  the  throb  of  ancient  fealty. 
A  century  has  passed  since  at  thy  knee 
We  learnt  the  speech  of  freeman,  caught  the  fire 
That  would  not  brook  thy  menaces,  when  sire 
And  grandsire  hurled  injustice  back  to  thee. 
But  the  full  years  have  wrought  equality; 
The  past  outworn,  shall  not  the  future  bring 
A  deeper  union,  from  whose  life  shall  spring 
Mankind's  best  hope?    In  the  dark  night  of  strife 
Men  perished  for  their  dream  of  liberty 
Whose  lives  were  given  for  this  larger  life. 

This  note  of  brotherhood  is  essentially  a  contribution  of  this 
epic  contest  for  democracy.  In  the  older  days  nationalism  was 
strong,  but  there  was  no  international  mind.  Each  nation  was 
for  itself,  had  itself  to  save  and  its  enemy  to  destroy,  but  did 
not  reach  out  to  embrace  any  other  peoples  except  in  the  form 
of  conventional  sentiment.  Today  the  martial  lyric  has  lost  the 
old  fierce  nationalism  and  has  acquired  instead  a  tone  of  univer- 
sality. 

The  burden  of  our  older  war  lyrics  may  be  summed  up  in  the 
words  "defense"  and  "isolation."  Let  us  guard  our  freedom 
from  intrusion,  they  implied;  let  us  rally  round  the  flag  and 
make  it  the  symbol  of  internal  safety  and  stability;  let  us  have 
individual  liberty,  and  above  all,  let  us  have  industrial  pros- 
perity: lei  us  get  our  house  in  order,  cultivate  our  own  garden, 
mind  our  own  business,  stay  at  home  and  be  happy,  and  let 
Europe  '-011111111  suicide,  if  she  has  a  mind  to.  It  was  the  lyric  cry 
of  domestic  bliss  in  the  land  of  the  free  and  the  home  of  the 
brave.  It  was  b  plea  for  interior  development,  with  a  wall 
around  as  to  keep  us  from  getting  out  and  making  any  foreign 
entanglements.  The  door  was  open,  to  be  sure,  for  the  oppressed 
and  the  expressed  from  other  lands,  all  too  wide  open,  as  it  now 


Randolph-Macon  Woman's  College  15 

appears ;  but  then  we  had  a  sort  of  childlike  faith  in  the  perfect 
working  of  the  melting-pot,  except  perchance  for  certain  ori- 
entals, and  moreover,  we  banked  heavily  on  the  embattled 
farmer  and  birdshot.  The  older  patriotic  poetry,  in  other 
words,  glorified  the  idea  of  little  Americanism,  and  generously 
extended  an  invitation  to  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  alien  folk 
to  come  and  be  assimilated  in  our  charming  polyglot  paradise. 
We  then  thought  the  chief  function  of  our  Goddess  of  Liberty 
was  to  enlighten  the  world;  we  have  since  discovered  that  her 
main  and  urgent  business  is  to  free  the  world. 

The  tone  of  current  literature  is  vibrant  with  the  thrill  of 
perilous  adventure  in  the  air,  under  the  sea,  and  on  the  infernal 
rim  of  No  Man's  Land;  our  poetry  is  luminous  with  the  hearten- 
ing ideals  of  a  vaster  brotherhood.  But  for  the  first  time  in  his- 
tory it  celebrates  the  redemptive  power  of  democracy.  It  took 
us  a  good  while  to  agree  unanimously  as  to  why  we  are  in  this 
war.  A  year  ago  some  were  saying  that  it  was  to  avenge  the 
sinking  of  our  ships,  or  to  maintain  our  rights  on  the  high  seas, 
or  to  protect  our  commerce,  or  to  save  ourselves  if  the  British 
navy  failed  to  keep  back  the  invading  vikings.  None  of  these 
will  now  be  accepted  as  an  entirely  satisfactory  answer.  De- 
mocracy militant,  redemptive,  and  beneficent,  is  the  ringing  re- 
ply to  the  autocratic  challenge  of  the  foe.  Our  motive  is  the 
most  idealistic  in  the  history  of  nations.  No  lust  of  conquest, 
no  desire  for  indemnity,  no  imperial  ambition,  no  hunger  for 
territory,  have  turned  this  erstwhile  pacific  land  into  an  arsenal 
of  war  and  into  one  vast  training  camp.  What  aroused  Amer- 
ica, and  what  aroused  England,  was  an  outraged  sense  of  jus- 
tice, the  colossal  apostasy  of  a  so-called  Christian  nation  in- 
flamed by  the  sacrilegious  conceit  of  a  Prussian  madman. 

Into  our  national  life  there  has  come  at  last  a  new  and  solemn 
purpose  that  stirs  the  imagination,  a  mighty  motive  that  sets  us 
to  work  and  makes  us  creators  and  not  critics,  doers  and  not 
talkers,  and  makes  our  poets  more  than  idle  singers  of  an  empty 
day.  We  were  tired  of  mere  talk  in  literature  and  in  education 
and  in  religion  and  in  politics.  As  Kenneth  Macgowan  says,  we 
were  tired    of    talk    that    everyone    accepted  and  no  one  acted 


16  Bulletin 

on;  we  were  tired  of  talk  that  nobody  accepted  and  every- 
one acted  on;  we  were  tired  of  talk  that  nobody  accepted  and 
nobody  acted  on — except  perhaps  the  angels  and  a  few  Bol- 
sheviki.  Bernard  Shaw  and  Gilbert  Chesterton  had  pounded 
us  with  paradox  until  our  laughter  had  grown  automatic  or 
mildly  mocking  as  at  the  familiar  joke  of  an  anecdotal  friend. 
Henry  James  had  wearied  us  with  his  refined  emotional  vivi- 
section, while  his  brother  William  was  hunting  for  a  moral 
equivalent  of  war.  Edgar  Lee  Masters  was  enlightening  us  with 
the  post-mortem  comments  of  the  denizens  of  Spoon  River;  and 
Vachel  Lindsay  was  piping  to  us  of  the  saltatory  doings  of  the 
negroes  of  the  Congo. 

But  now  a  fine,  thrilling  vitality  has  come  back  into  literature. 
We  have  passed  almost  at  a  bound  from  the  local  and  the  trivial 
and  the  bizarre  to  the  universal  and  the  essential  and  the  primal 
things — 

Things  that  time  cannot  fashion  and  unf ashion, 
The  fearless  faith  that  love  of  freedom  gives, 

The  fire,  the  inextinguishable  passion, 
The  will  to  die,  so  only  freedom  lives. 

After  all,  the  war  poets  are  saying,  what  is  the  individual  as 
compared  with  the  cause  for  which  he  is  fighting  and  the  land 
he  loves  with  deathless  devotion  ?  What  is  physical  suffering,  or 
mere  death,  for  that  matter,  when  you  know  that  human  free- 
dom is  having  its  Gethsemane  in  agony  and  blood?  Such  is  the 
motive  of  that  stirring  poem  by  Herbert  Kaufman,  "The  Hell- 
Gate  of  Soissons,"  on  which  the  world  again  has  its  eyes  fixed 
today : 

My  leg,  malheureusawiciit,    I   left  it  behind  on  the  banks  of  the  Aisne. 

f   would  pay  with  the  other  to  witness  their  valor  again. 
A  trifle,  indeed.  I  .'insure  you,  to  give  for  the  honour  to  tell 
Bow  thai   handful   of   British,  undaunted,  went  into  the  Gateway  of  Hell. 

Dante  had  a  vision  of  Paradise  because  he  had  been  through 
li'll.  But  Dante's  hell  was  mediaeval  ;m<l  mystical;  and  yet 
all  the  world  remembers  him  because  he  suffered  in  spirit  and 

SB  exile  from   the  City  he  loved.     What  B  motive  and  a  cue 
for  passion   has  the   poet  today   who  has   fought  in  the  trenches 


Randolph-Macon  Woman's  College  17 

and  who  has  looked  with  infinitely  saddened  eyes  upon  a  world 
in  ruins !  Can  the  writers  of  books  ever  revert  to  their  old  games 
and  problems?  Can  the  American  playwright  ever  thrill  us 
again  with  Indians  and  cowboys  and  melodramatic  maidens 
on  windswept  plains,  safe,  safe  in  the  rescuing  arms  of  the 
knight  of  the  galloping  broncho?  No,  we  cannot  return  to  the 
status  quo  ante,  even  if  we  wished  to  do  so;  we  have  already 
learned  and  suffered  too  much  to  have  any  desire  to  go  back  to 
our  old  complacent  provincialism.  We  are  acquiring  a  world- 
consciousness,  and  that  will  mean  a  new  national  self -conscious- 
ness. The  new  generation  will  have  much  more  in  common  with 
the  people  of  other  nations.  This  war  will  enrich  our  emotions 
and  make  more  complex  our  thinking ;  and  out  of  this  enrichment 
will  spring  a  greater  literature. 

It  will  celebrate  America's  supreme  contribution  to  the  spirit- 
ual wealth  of  the  world,  a  redemptive  democracy.  It  is  already 
beginning  to  do  that.  Our  American  poet,  James  Oppenheim, 
appeals  to  the  young  world: 

The  day  of  democracy? — Yes. 

And  what  is  democracy? 

It  is  allowance  for  each  man's  wish, 

And  so  the  mass-wish  rules. 

Not  needs,  not  duties,  not  rights, 

But  wishes,  desires,  wills. 

But  when  shall  men  wish  greatly? 

How  many  will  volunteer 

To  create  great  lives  and  loves? 

Look  to  the  past :  how  many 

Are  the  volunteers  on  the  scroll? 

Surely  democracy 

Will  mean  the  end  of  greatness 

Unless  you,  O  young  world, 

Spring  forth  to  the  call — 

Firstlings  of  the  voluntary  life — 

To  go  forth  in  yourself 

To  the  terrible  pains  of  growth, 

To  new  births  and  new  visions, 

To  the  living  of  new  values, 

To  the  risks  of  loneliness  and  persecution  and  discomfort. 

Examples — they  are  the  contagious  flame  in  democracy; 

Teachers — they  are  the  revealing  light  for  the  people. 

The  young  world  has  indeed  sprung  forth  in  might  and  majesty 
to  meet  this  challenge  of  autocracy.      Through  discipline  and 


18  Bulletin 

sacrifice  the  nation  is  being  cleansed  and  consecrated.  In  the 
vast  output  of  verse,  the  greatest  and  most  varied  literary  fruit- 
age since  the  French  Revolution,  this  note  of  spiritual  redemp- 
tion is  dominant.  Years  after  this  epic  struggle  for  world- 
democracy  shall  have  passed  into  history,  our  children 's  children 
will  read  in  collections  of  English  and  American  verse,  bound  to- 
gether in  a  new  Golden  Treasury,  such  poems  as  Rupert  Brooke 's 
famous  sonnet,  Alan  Seeger's  I  Have  a  Rendezvous  "With  Death, 
Herbert  Asquith's  The  Volunteer,  Kipling's  For  All  We  Have 
and  Are,  Florence  Holt's  England  and  America,  Alfred  Noyes' 
The  Searchlights,  Winnifred  Letts'  The  Spires  of  Oxford,  and 
Henry  Van  Dyke's  The  Name  of  France;  and  there  will  be  no 
name  dearer  to  the  American  heart  than  the  magic  monosyllable, 
FRANCE. 

This  great  war  has  brought  into  poetry  a  spirit  of  liberating 
adventure,  of  international  brotherhood,  of  personal  sacrifice, 
and  of  redemption  through  suffering,  which  the  verse  of  no 
other  war  so  vitally  reflects.  It  is  not  a  joyous  literature :  it  is 
burdened  and  mature  and  sophisticated;  the  utterance  of  souls 
in  agony,  of  minds  in  spiritual  perplexity,  of  men  and  women 
bewildered  at  the  shattering  of  their  dreams.  But  in  all  the 
clash  of  nations  and  the  chaos  of  counsel  there  are  heard  notes 
of  courage,  of  faith  and  of  hope.  The  dead  have  not  died  in 
vain.    Rupert  Brooke  calls  them  ''the  rich  dead:" 

Blow  out,  you  bugles,  over  the  rich  dead! 

There's  none  of  these  so  lonely  and  poor  of  old, 

Bat,  dying,  has  made  us  rarer  gifts  than  gold. 

These  laid  the  world  away;  poured  out  the  red 

Sweet  wine  of  youth ;  gave  up  the  years  to  be 

Of  work  and  joy,  and  that  unhoped  serene, 

That  men  '-Jill  age;  and  those  who  would  have  been, 

Their  sons,  they  gave,  their  immortality. 

Blow,  bugles,  blow!     They  brought  us,  for  our  dearth, 

Boliness,  lacked  bo  long,  and  love,  and  pain. 

Honour  lias  conic  hack,  :is  a   king,  to  earth, 

And  paid  ait  subjects  in  a  royal  wage; 

And    QObleneSS   walks   in   our   ways  again; 

And  wc  bays  some  into  our  heritage. 

Y'.ntli  i^  exchanging  ita  l»irthri<rlii  <>r  buoyant  Life  for  an  im- 
perishable renown. 


Randolph-Macon  Woman's  College  19 

They  went  with  songs  to  the  battle,  they  were  young, 
Straight  of  limb,  true  of  eye,  steady  and  aglow.     .     .     . 

They  shall  not  grow  old,  as  we  that  are  left  grow  old; 
Age  shall  not  weary  them,  nor  the  years  condemn. 
At  the  going  down  of  the  sun  and  in  the  morning 
We  will  remember  them. 

Yes,  we  will  remember  them.  And  more  than  that,  we  shall 
through  them  and  the  like  of  them,  and  by  the  ministrations  of 
men  and  women  back  at  home  working  not  less  heroically,  live 
in  a  freer  world. 

Our  dreams  are  cast 
Henceforward  in  a  more  heroic  mould; 
We  have  kept  faith  with  our  immortal  past. 
Knights — we  have  found  the  lady  of  our  love; 
Minstrels,  have  heard  great  harmonies,  above 
The  lyrics  that  enraptured  us  of  old.     .     .     . 

From  hand  to  hand 
We  pass  the  torch  and  perish — well  content 
If  in  dark  years  to  come  our  countrymen 
Feel  the  divine  fire  leap  in  them  again, 
And  so  remember  us  and  understand. 

The  older  poets  have  had  much  to  say  about  the  joy  of  living. 
The  knighthood  of  the  trenches,  of  the  air,  and  of  the  sea,  splen- 
didly bears  witness  to  the  joy  of  dying,  happy  in  the  thought 
that  it  may  have  a  part  in  passing  on  the  torch  of  freedom  and 
in  perishing  for  the  larger  brotherhood  of  the  world. 

And  in  this  new  world  now  slowly  emerging  out  of  chaos  and 
black  night,  the  colleges  and  universities  of  our  land  must  con- 
tinue to  be,  as  they  have  long  been,  the  radiating  centers  of  ideal- 
ism. Along  with  the  unusual  opportunities  which  these  crucial 
times  have  brought  will  come  with  every  advancing  day  obliga- 
tions that  no  young  man  or  woman  may  ignore.  Fortunate  in- 
deed are  those  who  graduate  in  this  memorable  year.  They  will 
throw  themselves  with  all  the  strength  and  ardour  of  their  minds 
into  this  righteous  fight  for  freedom.  And  those  who  follow  them 
in  college  halls  must  dedicate  themselves  with  more  than  ordi- 
nary energy  to  the  task  of  getting  ready  for  a  hand  in  the  re- 
organization of  the  world — a  task  that  will  demand  infinite  pa- 
tience, the  most  highly -trained  intelligence,  and  the  soundest  wis- 


20  Bulletin 

dom.  But  in  this  critical  hour,  when  ruthless  barbarian  hordes 
are  seeking  to  demolish  the  very  fabric  of  that  Christian  civil- 
ization which  we  have  counted  as  our  birthright,  there  can  be 
but  one  thought  and  one  prayer  here  today — that  tyranny  may 
be  stricken  from  the  earth,  so  that  once  again  in  the  blood-rich 
soil  of  France  and  Flanders  flowers  may  bloom, 

That  men  may  laugh  once  more  and  find  true  worth 
In  simple  things,  which  are  the  things  of  God. 


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